This application describes the establishment of a Research Center of Excellence on Minority Health Disparities at The University of Maryland (7P60MD000207-10) with its overarching goal, 'fostering excellence in transdisciplinary and community engaged research to improve minority health and eliminate health disparities in Maryland[unreadable]s African American and Latino communities.'Our objectives include: Objective 1: Evaluate the implementation of evidence-based public health interventions that are designed to reduce risk factors associated with pre-hypertension and pre-diabetes;Objective 2: Integrate systematic research studies on obesity, primary prevention of major depression, and immunization- related disparities into community based interventions;Objective 3: Conduct a community-wide, educational intervention designed to increase knowledge and overcome barriers to the willingness of African Americans and Latinos to participate in research;Objective 4: Increase recruitment of African Americans into clinical, public health, and intervention research;Objective 5: Accelerate the career development of African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos pursuing academic and professional careers in the health sciences Objective 6: Create, validate, and refine a set of common measures of discrimination, neighborhood deprivation, trust in research, co-morbid symptoms, and mental health that may contribute to development of conceptual models and theoretical frameworks essential to understanding minority health disparities. Our primary clinical trial is titled, 'Prevention of Depression in Older African Americans.'